Today is the 20th anniversary of the opening of the Ledra Palace border checkpoint to two-way crossing. The checkpoint is named after the historical Ledra Palace hotel, Kibris Postasi reports.
Twenty years ago, when the UBP-DP coalition was in power, the Council of Ministers held an extraordinary meeting and decided to open three border checkpoints between north and south Cyprus.
Between 1974 and 2003, only three border checkpoints – Ledra Palace, Beyarmudu and Akyar were open to very limited crossing.
However, following a landmark decision, crossing from both sides was permitted.
The Ledra Palace crossing, was at one time only open to officials, UN personnel and SBA personnel, both pedestrian and vehicles, but then was reorganised to permit pedestrian (civilian) only crossings, after the opening of the border in Metehan on May 10, 2003.
After the Ledra Palace checkpoint opening, eight more border crossing points were opened at regular intervals until 2018, while reciprocal crossings can be made from a total of nine checkpoints at the moment.
